This invention relates to the field of medical devices, and more particularly to a guidewire for advancing a catheter within a body lumen in a procedure such as percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA).
Conventional guidewires for angioplasty and other vascular procedures usually comprise an elongated core member with one or more tapered sections near the distal end thereof and a flexible body such as a helical coil disposed about the distal portion of the core member. A shapable member, which may be the distal extremity of the core member or a separate shaping ribbon which is secured to the distal extremity of the core member extends through the flexible body and is secured to a rounded plug at the distal end of the flexible body. Torquing means are provided on the proximal end of the core member to rotate, and thereby steer, the guidewire while it is being advanced through a patient's vascular system.
In a typical PTCA procedure a guiding catheter having a preformed distal tip is percutaneously introduced into the cardiovascular system of a patient in a conventional Seldinger technique and advanced therein until the distal tip of the guiding catheter is seated in the ostium of a desired coronary artery. A guidewire is positioned within an inner lumen of a dilatation catheter and then both are advanced through the guiding catheter to the distal end thereof. The guidewire is first advanced out of the distal end of the guiding catheter into the patient's coronary vasculature until the distal end of the guidewire crosses a lesion to be dilated, then the dilatation catheter having an inflatable balloon on the distal portion thereof is advanced into the patient's coronary anatomy over the previously introduced guidewire until the balloon of the dilatation catheter is properly positioned across the lesion. Once in position across the lesion, the balloon is inflated to a predetermined size with radiopaque liquid at relatively high pressures (e.g. greater than 4 atmospheres) to compress the arteriosclerotic plaque of the lesion against the inside of the artery wall and to otherwise expand the inner lumen of the artery. The balloon is then deflated so that blood flow is resumed through the dilated artery and the dilatation catheter can be removed therefrom.
A major requirement for guidewires is that they have sufficient column strength to be pushed through a patient's vascular system or other body lumen without kinking. However, they must also be flexible enough to avoid damaging the blood vessel or other body lumen through which they are advanced. Efforts have been made to improve both the strength and flexibility of guidewires to make them more suitable for their intended uses, but these two properties are for the most part diametrically opposed to one another in that an increase in one usually involves a decrease in the other.
The prior art makes reference to the use of alloys such as NITINOL (Ni--Ti alloy) which have shape memory and/or superelastic or psuedoelastic characteristics in medical devices which are designed to be inserted into a patient's body. The shape memory characteristics allow the devices to be deformed to facilitate their insertion into a body lumen or cavity and then be heated within the body so that the device returns to its original shape. Pseudoelastic characteristics on the other hand generally allow the metal to be deformed and restrained in the deformed condition to facilitate the insertion of the medical device containing the metal into a patient's body, with such deformation causing a stress induced phase transformation from austenite to martensite. Once within the body lumen, the restraint on the pseudoelastic member can be removed, thereby reducing the stress therein so that the pseudoelastic member can return to its original undeformed shape by the transformation from the thermally unstable martensite phase back to the original stable austenite phase.
Alloys having shape memory/pseudoelastic characteristics generally have at least two phases, the martensite phase, which has a relatively low tensile strength and which is stable at relatively low temperatures, and an austenite phase, which has a relatively high tensile strength and which is stable at temperatures higher than the martensite phase.
Shape memory characteristics are imparted to the alloy by heating the metal at a temperature above which the transformation from the martensite phase to the austenite phase is complete, i.e. a temperature above which the austenite phase is stable. The shape of the metal during this heat treatment is the shape "remembered". The heat treated metal is cooled to a temperature at which the martensite phase is stable, causing the austenite phase to transform to the martensite phase. The metal in the martensite phase is then plastically deformed, e.g. to facilitate the entry thereof into a patient's body. Subsequent heating of the deformed martensite phase to a temperature above the martensite to austenite transformation temperature causes the deformed martensite phase to transform to the austenite phase and during this phase transformation the metal reverts back to its original shape.
The prior methods of using the shape memory characteristics of these alloys in medical devices intended to be placed within a patient's body presented operational difficulties. For example, with shape memory alloys having a stable martensite temperature below body temperature, it was frequently difficult to maintain the temperature of the medical device containing such an alloy sufficiently below body temperature to prevent the transformation of the martensite phase to the austenite phase when the device was being inserted into a patient's body. With intravascular devices formed of shape memory alloys having martensite-to-austenite transformation temperatures well above body temperature, the devices could be introduced into a patient's body with little or no problem, but they had to be heated to the martensite-to-austenite transformation temperature which was frequently high enough to cause tissue damage and very high levels of pain.
When stress is applied to a specimen of a metal such as NITINOL exhibiting pseudoelastic characteristics at a temperature at or above which the transformation of martensite phase to the austenite phase is complete, the specimen deforms elastically until it reaches a particular stress level where the alloy then undergoes a stress-induced phase transformation from the austenite phase to the martensite phase. As the phase transformation proceeds, the alloy undergoes significant increases in strain but with little or no corresponding increases in stress. The strain increases while the stress remains essentially constant until the transformation of the austenite phase to the martensite phase is complete. Thereafter, further increases in stress are necessary to cause further deformation. The martensitic metal first yields elastically upon the application of additional stress and then plastically with permanent residual deformation.
If the load on the specimen is removed before any permanent deformation has occurred, the martensitic specimen will elastically recover and transform back to the austenite phase. The reduction in stress first causes a decrease in strain. As stress reduction reaches the level at which the martensite phase transforms back into the austenite phase, the stress level in the specimen will remain essentially constant (but substantially less than the constant stress level at which the austenite transforms to the martensite) until the transformation back to the austenite phase is complete, i.e. there is significant recovery in strain with only negligible corresponding stress reduction. After the transformation back to austenite is complete, further stress reduction results in elastic strain reduction. This ability to incur significant strain at relatively constant stress upon the application of a load and to recover from the deformation upon the removal of the load is commonly referred to as pseudoelasticity or pseudoelasticity.
The prior art makes reference to the use of metal alloys having pseudoelastic characteristics in medical devices which are intended to be inserted or otherwise used within a patient's body. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,665,905 (Jervis) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,925,445 (Sakamoto et al.).
The Sakamoto et al. patent discloses the use of a nickel-titanium pseudoelastic alloy in an intravascular guidewire which could be processed to develop relatively high yield strength levels. However, at the relatively high yield stress levels which cause the austenite-to-martensite phase transformation characteristic of the material, it did not have a very extensive stress-induced strain range in which the austenite transforms to martensite at relative constant stress. As a result, frequently as the guidewire was being advanced through a patient's tortuous vascular system, it would be stressed beyond the pseudoelastic region, i.e. develop a permanent set or even kink which can result in tissue damage. This permanent deformation would generally require the removal of the guidewire and the replacement thereof with another.
Products of the Jervis patent on the other hand had extensive strain ranges, i.e. 2 to 8% strain, but the relatively constant stress level at which the austenite transformed to martensite was very low, e.g. 50 ksi.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,341,818 (Abrams et al.), which has been assigned to the present assignee, reference is made to a guidewire having a stainless steel proximal core section, a flexible distal core section formed of superelastic or pseudoelastic nickel-titanium alloy and a cylindrical connecting element engaging the distal end of the proximal core section and the proximal end of the distal core section to provide a torque transmission relationship between the proximal and distal core sections of the guidewire. The guidewire described and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,341,818 is sold under the trademark Balance Guidewire by the present assignee, Advanced Cardiovascular Systems, Inc. and has met with much commercial success. However, notwithstanding the commercial success of this guidewire product, the manufacturing procedures were quite complicated due to the requirement of etching and precoating the distal core section and the cylindrical connecting element, both of which were formed of NiTi alloy, with a solder material to develop a sound subsequent soldered bond within the cylindrical connector as described in the aforesaid Abrams et al. patent.